Exothermic
by carrafin
Summary: XS. Such is the chemistry of love; it either boils down to nothing, or it goes up in flames. Rated T for their...verbal interactions. Need I say more?


**Cross posted from LJ. A warning to those who feel that they might be extremely troubled with the whole genderbending thing: there's a Fem!Xanxus ahead. Go ahead, judge me all you want. **

**(...Truth to be told, I don't know what I was thinking.)**

* * *

><p><strong>Exothermic<strong>

_Such is the chemistry of love; it either boils down to nothing,  
>or it goes up in flames.<br>_**  
><strong>

* * *

><p><em>They had, it seemed to others, an explosive amount of chemistry. He was like Francium, and she Fluorine<em>_- the most reactive metal and halogen respectively in the Periodic Table; together they were nothing short of a bang.__  
><em>

**I**.

**_Explosions are not comfortable._**

They first met in an official party; one of those social functions that involved starched suits, caviar and too much politics. Xanxus had been complaining about the bad food (_complaining _really meant flinging tables all over the place and stabbing every chef in sight with butter knives) and Squalo, the host of the night, had been dispatched by his famiglia - unwisely - to deal with her.

Words turned to shouting turned to unbefitting violence.

'This is a fucking social function, calm the fuck down,' Squalo said, oblivious to her murderous aura, his fingers itching for his trusty sword.

'I won't take crap from scums,' was the curt reply.

'VOOOI!' Squalo roared. 'You will not talk back to me! I'm the fucking host of the party!'

'And I,' Xanxus spat, granting him a look that would freeze the Indian Ocean not once but thrice, 'am your fucking guest.'

Squalo's rage rose to unhealthy levels and, because it seemed that his common sense had suddenly taken permanent residence in Siberia, he quickly unsheathed his sword.

Xanxus smirked in response, crushed the wine glass in her hands idly and loftily drew out a gun.

Luckily, though, nothing was destroyed in the end save for a few tables, a bone or two and the relationship between their families.

That was the first explosion. 

* * *

><p><strong>II.<strong>

**_But if I had a choice..._  
><strong>

They met a second time, assigned by the higher ups to carry out a mission together; there was to be a coup organised by a branch family in Paris and they had been dispatched to stop it. Squalo found out that, despite Xanxus being a girl, she was probably far more capable than him...Not that he'd ever admit it aloud.

'It's the piece of trash again,' Xanxus said when they met, her dark eyes narrowing into slits.

'Voi! Continue talking like this and there will be blood!'

She merely threw him a bored expression and inserted the keys into the ignition of her motorbike. The engine roared to life and she leapt swiftly onto it.

'Voi! What am I-' Before Squalo could continue, however, there was another deafening roar as Xanxus sped away.

He caught up with her two hours later.

'What the fuck did you mean by leaving me behind like that?' Squalo hissed (had they not been in enemy territory, he would have screamed obscenities in five different languages). Xanxus spared him a condescending glance and went back to spying on the building, her shoulders stiff with concentration.

'Tch. You'll attack them from behind,' Squalo said, already resigned to her response (or, more accurately, the lack thereof).

'I'm not taking orders from trash,' Xanxus replied loftily, and sped forward before he could say anything more.

'Voi!' The swordsman screamed as he shot up from behind the bush, hurriedly unsheathing his sword. Fuck, why was he _always_one step behind that she-devil? 'I'm not going to save you if you get killed!'

He needn't have bothered at all. Xanxus emerged five minutes later with a few broken bones and fresh bruises, but ultimately stood victorious amidst a horde of corpses, idly running her fingers through her long, rough black hair. She turned and granted him a triumphant sneer.

'Trash, you didn't even do anything.'

(He knew, at that moment, that _she _would be the one giving the orders from then on. And that he would, unwillingly, grudgingly, but doubtlessly comply.)

* * *

><p><strong>III.<strong>

_**It ends not with a fizzle,  
>but with a bang.<strong>_

Squalo proposed after a particularly bloody mission; when they were both tired and worn out, broken in too many places to even lie down.

'Voi! I'm going to tell you something,' he began. 'But it's going to be a little complicated-'

'I'm counting to zero,' Xanxus replied, and he knew she meant it.

'Marry me,' Squalo growled, throwing a ring onto her hospital bed. There was a gnawing silence for about fifteen minutes, in which Xanxus started emitting off her usual satanic aura. Had Squalo been a normal man, he would have been reduced to a whimpering mess/ had a minor cardiac arrest already. But then Squalo was hardly a normal man.

'Voi! So are you going to agree or not?'

Xanxus was furious, and gave him a thorough beating.

'What the fuck-' he began, but she yanked his hair - 'fuck, boss, you're going to have a balding groom!' - and slapped his face.

'You'll do it again,' she said, narrowing her eyes, '_properly_.'

Squalo stared at Xanxus incredulously. She bitch glared right back.

* * *

><p>(Needless to say, he complied.)<p> 


End file.
